pine-and repine-in unwilling celibacy, while the rich tradespeople and the proletarians go on increasing and multiplying like Colorado beetles, and overrunning the earth with their Cockney abodes. Mundungus. Impregnating our air with noxious gases and noisome effluvia.

Smelfungus. Turning our rivers into filth.

Mundungus. That is, turning our filth into the rivers.

Smelfungus. And what are we the better for railways? What have we got by them that we had not in the old coaching times? Mundungus. Facility of locomotion, as the phrase is-quick conveyance from place to place. But then one place is daily getting more and more like another-and all more like suburbs of London. Smelfungus. Railway receipts grown to £22,000,000 in one year! What have we got to show for it?

Mundungus. About the greatest blessings I see from the railway system, and steam, and commerce, and communication between man and man, are cheap pine-apples, gutta-percha, and india-rubber. Smelfungus. In the meanwhile an Ironclad costs above half a million, and we have to reconstruct the Navy every two or three

years.

Mundungus. Every shot or shell we may have to fire from a monster gun, bang will go from five-and-twenty to fifty pounds.

Smelfungus. Public expenditure and private extravagance, grasping and squandering, increase yearly, at the rate of thousands of millions. And every now and then there is a smash for three or four.

Mundungus. All the fat's in the fire.

Smelfungus. And-with the Iron Horse all over the civilised earth to feed-all the coals. There at least they will be before long. Prosperity is blazing up, but when our coal-fields are exhausted How then?

A PLEA AGAINST THE BEE.

A CERTAIN "C. R." has announced in the Times the discovery that the Bee, from time immemorial reputed a model insect, the embodiment of virtuous diligence and industry, is, instead of that, a truculent and noxious pest, no better than a wasp, a cockroach, or an earwig. This discovery is news indeed. It is also just now particularly seasonable, as this is the season of fruit, especially of monstrous pippins and gigantic peaches and pears. "C. R." accuses Bees not only of devouring his own wall-fruit and that of other people, but also of having wantonly pitched into and stung himself, and being prone, without provocation, to fly at and sting mankind. His denunciation of Bees has naturally raised a swarm of gainsayers about his ears, and the character of the Bee may, perhaps, be considered to have been satisfactorily vindicated; but, if "C. R.'s" assault upon it could have been sustained, the immortal poem in which it has been extolled by DR. WATTS would have to be re-written. Instead of being represented as an entomological pattern to a moralising infant, the Bee would deserve to be proposed as a study to an idle and vicious boy, abandoned to the indulgence of a swinish appetite, and glorying in it. The verses of DR. WATTS might then be replaced by the following perversion of his panegyric:

THE BEE.

How doth the gorging greedy Bee,
Destructive little brute,

Hum all day long from tree to tree,
And spoil the choicest fruit!
Behold how deep she scoops a cell,
When peaches she attacks,
In nectarines and pears as well
How big a hole she makes!
Likewise to eat and drink my fill
I should be happy too;

For Nature has disposed me still
But little else to do.

In prog and grub, by turns with play,

Might all my life be past,

Till I, perhaps, should come to weigh
Good fourteen score at last.

However, there is every reason to think that "C. R." has mistaken a sort of blow flies for Bees, and that, having, as he says, been stung by a Bee, he is labouring under melissophobia.

Smelfungus. Let us hope it won't.

Mundungus. We shan't, at any rate, old man.

Smelfungus. No; long before that we shall both of us have fallen martyrs to bile and indigestion.

Mundungus. And so have got rid of a world of sorrow, stink, steam, rheumatism, ritualism, roguery, and rhodomontade! Smelfungus. And a good riddance, too!

(Curtain falls on them croaking severally.)

GRACIOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

Or, Pour Encourager les Autres.

Ir is rumoured that, in consequence of the general satisfaction given by two of their most recent official communications, the Lords of the Admiralty intend sanctioning the invariable use of the following form of letter, to be used in all cases where the recognition of assistance rendered at sea becomes absolutely necessary. The same form to be adopted by the Board of Trade :Whitehall, [Date].

SIR,-I am directed by the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Admiralty to inform you that, in consequence of your heroic gallantry in saving the crew of the ship, during a heavy gale, you have made it necessary for their Lordships to take notice of the matter; and, on your enclosing a stamped receipt for Five Pounds, and a letter of thanks, I shall be directed to forward to you, in the course of the next financial year, the above-mentioned sum, together with a concertina, or any other article you may, within the abovementioned period, select from the Lowther Arcade.

Your Obedient Servant,

Mundungus. If the world lasts so long.

To CAPTAIN

of the

[SECRETARY FOR TIME BEING].

NATIONAL MISTAKES.

(By a Dyspeptic Newspaper-Reader.)

IT is a mistake to imagine that water-tight compartments can be relied on to keep iron-clads afloat, if they strike on a rock, encounter a ram, or are struck by a torpedo.

1. Do you think it advisable that a Head Master should call the attention of Parents and Guardians of his Pupils to the existence of a neglected fever raging in a School over which he has (theoretically) the supreme control?

2. Do you think a Head Master, who properly represents his subordinates, should feel aggrieved if his Assistants are told to go to the Matron to get the cheques for the salaries due to them?

3. Do you think a quarter's notice, given with the scantiest courtesy, an improper or insufficient warning of dismissal, when addressed to a respectable Clergyman, who has spent twenty of the best years of his life as Head Master of a School he has rescued, by his exertions, from debt and obscurity?

4. Do you think that the aged Clerk of the Trustees of a School is an improper person to become the Steward of the School of which his employers are the Trustees-do you, in fact, object to his filling two positions, in which the duty of servant and master are strangely jumbled together ?

5. Do you think there should be any appeal to a higher power in the case of the Trustees neglecting to perform the duties they were appointed to perform?

6. And, lastly (most important of all), in the event of your being appointed Head Master of Felstead School, will you expect to be treated with the courtesy and respect generally accorded to a person claiming to be a scholar, a gentleman, and a divine ?

It is a mistake to rely upon our Navy as a first line of defence against invaders.

It is a still greater mistake to rely upon our Regular Army as a second.

A greater still to trust to the Militia as a possible third. And the greatest of all mistakes to regard the Volunteers as anything better than an armed mob.

It is a mistake to imagine that the British Flag is the standard of freedom, and that slaves setting foot upon British ground (including the quarter-decks of Her Majesty's ships) "never, never, never shall be slaves" any more.

It is a mistake to imagine that with the freest and finest Constitution in the world, we are free from the lowest political vices.

It is a mistake to believe that our houses are our castles, so long as we live under the sway of Bumbledom.

In fact, it is the greatest mistake in the world to believe now-adays that BRITANNIA rules the waves, or that JOHN BULL has the slightest right to turn up his nose at the follies, shortcomings, or vices of his neighbours.

Potato Show, Alexandra Palace. EXHIBITORS, Committee too,

Around the tables moved with air profound, Wearing the looks of men who knew

The Eyes of England on them, and around!

THE OTTOMAN OUT-AT-ELBOWS.

So the Turkish Government is obliged to come to a composition with its creditors, whom it proposes to pay, for the next five years, half in cash and half in paper! This is the result of gross extravagance, especially in two principal branches of lavish expenditure-money squandered to satisfy the demands of the Harem, and to pay for the Fleet. Both the ships and the ladies are more ornamental than useful. It is difficult to say which the SULTAN has found the more costly-his Ironclads or his Silkenclads. This cool act of repudiation will swell the ranks of the rising against Turkey, by adding to the other rayahs in revolt all the British creditors of the Porte, who will now be just as eager to get rid of their Turkish bonds as the Bosnians or Herzegovinese.

Vindication of Wales.

IN the course of his discourse on Crime before the Social Science Congress at Brighton, LORD ABERDARE mentioned that the crime of Wales, in proportion to the population, is but half that of England. This statement may help to remove from some minds a prejudice they have been imbued with in the nursery, that

"TAFFY was a Welshman, TAFFY was a thief."

This slanderous nursery-rhyme should be cancelled, or re-written, now that LORD ABERDARE has vindicated his countrymen from the aspersion it implies. He has demonstrated, by figures, that TAFFY is not half such a thief as JOHN BULL.

Ward Hunt to his Friend Punch. WE haven't hauled down the British Flag (See one of your recent productions!, But we've chosen the other alternativeWe've hauled down our Mis-instructions.

A SPEECH TO MEDICAL STUDENTS. AN exceptional "introductory lecture" was delivered on the first instant, in the Medical School of the Westminster Hospital, by MR. RICHARD DAVY. In marked contrast with discourses reported the next day, and filling much space, it must have greatly disappointed many respectable persons who love to read, or sit and listen to, a succession of moral and scientific platitudes. MR. DAVYaccording to a summary of his address-began by saying candidly that:

"He disapproved in toto of introductory addresses, but, at the request of the Medical Council, conformed to custom. Both students and teachers preferred a day's pheasant shooting to hearing or giving an introductory.' As a surgeon, he should cut down his sermon from an hour to fifteen minutes, and his successor might still further reduce the volume of these fruitless harangues."

MR. DAVY wronged himself in calling his lecture a "sermon." It could have had no effect in common with morphia or mesmerism. Still, in point of brevity, it was a model which preachers might study.

Having touched on the subject of medico-chirurgical reform, the Lecturer next, in a few strokes, gave his audience a sketch of their professional prospects. He told them what honours and payment they might hope to obtain by the practice of their noble calling. Thus did he set forth the generosity with which an appreciative Government, and a grateful Public, are accustomed to requite the services of medical men :

"Their salaries were simply miserable; hospital physicians and surgeons were, for the most part, unpaid. Poor Law Officers most piteously; surgeons in the services very badly, and young practitioners not at all. For seven years' hard work in the Marylebone Dispensary he had received one guinea, and a very distinguished London assistant physician had found that his salary equalled that of the man who put the skid on the omnibus wheels at Holborn Hill."

Who, then, would enter the medical profession but a wealthy

A STRONG CASE FOR PLIMSOLL.

Ir the report of BISHOP CLAUGHTON'S conduct in the dismissal of the Head Master of Felstead Grammar School be correct, his Lordship is clearly un-seeworthy.

philanthropist? We should say nobody except a poor fool. Perhaps this consideration may, in a measure, account for the shortcomings of medical science, as well as for the general quality of the introductory lectures delivered on the First of October. Possibly, in some cases, for that of the whole course.

denounced by sentimentalists. MoreoverMR. DAVY warmly supported a prophylactic Act of Parliament

"He was pained at the nonsense which had been let off over vivisection. Practical experiments were as important to medical men as to the Royal Artillery at Dartmoor."

In conclusion

"He advised every one to resign at once any and every thought of becoming a medical man unless he possessed three qualifications:-First, independence; second, an aptitude and love for the profession; third, the readiness to pay heavy premium in this world for his prospects of reward in the next."

It may be hoped that MR. DAVY's introductory lecture will, if in any sense a "sermon," at any rate not prove a "fruitless harangue." The "lastly" of this "sermon" is commended to the attention of all young men who dream of living by the practice of the medical profession.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,

Longevity at Felstead.

I SEE in the Guardian that the Felstead Rump have advertised for a new Head-Master. They promise him £200 a-year, and two pounds for every boy beyond 75 and up to 150, and one pound "five pounds capitation fee for every boy beyond 25 and up to 75, for every boy beyond 150." Will you please to let me know, per return, whether these are the common ages of boys in Essex, and if the longevity of that county extends to girls? If so, I shall migrate thither. Yours truly, AN OLD MAID.

VOL. LXIX.

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.-OCTOBER 16, 1875.

BILLINGSGATE À LA FRANÇAISE.

DURING A

THE GRAMMATICAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE, AND IS ANXIOUS TO FAMILIARISE HERSELF WITH ITS IDIOMS. MISS MIGNONNETTE MILLEFLEURS HAS MASTERED SHORT BOJOURN ON THE FRENCH COAST, BHE ADOPTS THE PLAN OF MARKETING FOR HERSELF AND HER FAMILY, AND ACQUIRES THEREBY AN IDIOMATIC FLUENCY THAT IS QUITE APPALLING.